Forward July 2015 | Page 56

COMMUNITY A thank you from the Darge family A message of thanks from Trevor (Wb 79-83) and Sue Darge, Harrison (PS 20072008, Wb 2009-2013) and Ruby. On 27 July 2013 a fire broke out in our recently renovated home in Menora, where we had lived for 20 years. It began as a mere wisp of smoke, fortunately during the daytime, but by the time the fire brigade arrived it was burning out of control. Although the firefighters did a marvellous job, within a few hours the whole upper storey had been burnt through and water, smoke and rubble filled the ground floor. The next few days were a blur. We had only the clothes on our backs and almost all our appliances and bedding materials were gone. In the months that followed came the realisation that the entire extension had to be removed and most of the ground floor required extensive rebuilding. Amongst the anguish were some bright shining lights. Through the kindness of Perth College we were given a place to live while we sought rental accommodation. Guildford Grammar School offered pastoral care immediately and the School went to work. New uniforms for Harrison were organised in a flash and his teachers kindly rounded up school books and new notes, crucial in his final year of school. As if that wasn’t enough, Graeme Plummer and Ruth Warden, President of the Friends of Senior School, quickly arranged for word of our situation to go out to the parents, asking whether any parents might have household items to spare to help us in the short term. Sue and I will never forget the feeling of walking into the School and seeing literally piles of goods of all descriptions and other kind donations covering a table. In the next months these items helped us resume a normal life while we started the process of rebuilding the house. We are pleased that after a long 18 months we were finally able to move back into our house this February. The items we no longer used were passed on to the Salvation Army to help others. As a schoolboy at Guildford Grammar School I couldn’t really understand what the Headmaster meant when he called the School a community. Sometimes it is only in the face of adversity that you realise the strength of character and generosity of a school and its students and parents. We remain in your debt. Mr Trevor Darge (Wb 79-83) 56